Musical Form Exercise

F. was struggling with finishing a track, so I thought about leading this exercise in terms of what makes a musical composition “finished” or not. Abstraction I was thinking about this problem as the challenge of adding form to the formless, which is something that I have had to do in other modalities: Patternmaking in cordswaining When we outlined both feet to make the sole, then took the average of the two feet (mirrored) to make the pattern Drawing the curve of our upper as we visualized it, but going back and using the bezier curve for the final shape Choreography When developing choreo, I might first move to the music in a way that inspires me, but then I need to simplify those moves in order to disseminate it to others. This might strip some nuance out of the movement, but allows others (and myself) a way to repeat it e.g. the instructions “left arm moves forward, draw 180 arc with your hips, dévelopée right leg” leaves out much detail, but is more concise than, the embodied action(s) Translation/detranslation (telephone signal processing/transmission) The idea I’m trying to get across: even though the idea you have might be highly complex, you need to simplify it in order for it to be transmissible to others (or sometimes, just to yourself at a later date) ...

Pigeon Sampling DnB

My second compostion was based on a DnB track (“Shadow Boxing (Om Unit Remix)”) by Nasty Habits. I first had a sample that I found interesting (my roommate’s recording of doves outside), then constructed the DnB based on modular components. i.e., Shadowbowing has a synth drone build until it opens with a very memorable sample. I then had a lot of fun adding percussion elements that were more or less minimal, as well as melodic lines that were all derived from the sample. ...

Music Composition Class With Steph

Took a music composition class with Stephanie Hewett (Madre Guia) where we learned about Ableton and following basic structures to compose music. This was an application-based program sponsored by CircoZero. I found Ableton pretty intuitive and was one of the few people at the end to produce a composition: “Poltergeist”, which samples Made In Heights’ “Murakami”. I think the initial confusing bits were just how to find samples and then understanding how these samples are stored within a project, how they can be accessed, and what changes persist. ...